Phone & Defense

Yesterday I had to buy some equipment for the new fiber optic connection, no, it won’t make the stories better or shorter, it will just make them a lot faster.

Well, anyway, I wanted to inquire about an item of clothing and the prices in this little shop in the shopping mile. When I entered the empty store, I found a young saleswoman on the phone: 1.73 m, 62 kg, dark hair, medium length, about 40, realistically estimated, well, she doesn’t read it, all in black, including the turtleneck. Only the length of the hair, the black clothes and the phone are certain. Details are not as important as one often thinks.

I told her without saying a word that I had time, that she should make the call in peace, and it took at least another two minutes. She gave the impression that she wanted to end the call, but her interlocutor didn’t, but somehow she didn’t speak at all, she kept nodding silently and looking around a little, I can see that out of the corner of my eye while I’m looking at socks that don’t interest me at all. Typical, these wandering glances of the saleswoman while she actually wants to do something else, I thought. That’s what little flight reflexes look like. Nevertheless, she looked good while making a silent phone call, not an easy task, because you have to have the right looks for it, and she was quite good at it.

Then she curtly ended the call, tapped her cell phone, and rolled her eyes so hard that she even squinted a little. She looked even worse than before. I have to admit that I’m more interested in facial expressions than clothes.

„Yes, please, what can I do for you?“

„Who was that? Your mother?“

We laughed briefly, yes, of course it was her.

I somehow knew that from before, from my own years from about 20 to just before my 60s. It’s not always easy to deal with a phone, especially if you don’t like talking on the phone anyway, and mothers can really talk a lot on the phone. I don’t remember any questions myself, at least not from my mother, at most something like, „You’ll agree with me, won’t you?“ An awkward moment that could quickly lead to explosions on the other end of the line. I was the son of the diplomatic foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. If you don’t know him, he was the one with the bright yellow sweater over his white shirt. And he could say a lot without saying anything, as the job required.

Perhaps my aversion to almost any kind of telephone conversation stems from that 40-year experience. I can still handle a call to the dentist, I’m flexible. Apart from that, I listen, but in general, away from the phone, I probably talk too much and too loudly, which comes from working at the school and the fact that I often talk to older people, i.e. people my own age.

On the same day, a very good, very old friend wrote to me, not old as in „old man“, but old as in Old Firehand. The ‚old‘ is just to emphasize that he was really good at shooting. Or „old“ is more like „shrewd“ or „cunning“ or „experienced“, I don’t know what Karl May had in mind. Maybe he meant something like ‚old Swede‘. „Old Swede“ is a German proverb.

The „old Swede“ comes from the fact that a German warlord, Elector Frederick William, wanted his soldiers to be trained very rigorously. So he brought in old Swedish soldiers. They were known to be very strict. And that’s why they got the nickname „Old Swedes“. „Old Swede“ was originally used as an insult to Swedish soldiers in training, but the meaning has changed over time. Today it is mainly used to express astonishment or amazement. It is also used as a synonym for a good friend or „buddy“.

Didn’t you know that? Tscha, …. I didn’t either, I researched it.

Men don’t say „I like you“, they just say „You old Swede“. I doubt if there are similar expressions among women.

And I know more about mothers than I do about soldiers.

It’s not so bad to be able to shoot back on the phone, unfortunately I never had that. I also rarely kicked hard in soccer, unless we were behind. Yellow cards in those days were more for complaining, for talking, and you could afford to complain sometimes, even off the pitch. Mom often gave you yellow cards, mostly for having the wrong opinion.

I don’t think my good old friend has fought back much in his life either. To be able to do that is psycho-hygienically quite healthy, even towards mothers, at least that’s what I think today, in retrospect. If you fight back too late, you might not even know where to look for the bullets in your belt, if you know what I mean.

A certain amount of early defensiveness seems to make sense to me, and adolescence is the perfect time for it. This „defensiveness“ can be practiced with one’s own mother, and then one is better prepared for life. Mothers should also understand and appreciate this, but it’s not easy. Basically, I also find contradiction a bit exhausting and demanding. On the other hand, nobody said that everything has to be easy.

My good old friend, I haven’t seen him very often in my life because we live so far apart, … but those few times were actually enough, which I find quite amazing. Our mothers could have been siblings, but they weren’t, we rarely wrote about it in passing, our subjects were different.

It’s great to have friends, you don’t necessarily have to see them every Friday if your schedule doesn’t allow it. Sometimes it’s comforting to know that you can write and be sure to get a response. In any case, both our mothers are long gone, but you can’t forget them, that would be unnatural.

Besides parents, there are a few real „life companions“ like Picasso, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Bob Dylan or, for younger people, Taylor Swift or Kendall Jenner.

Of course, you can also just get married early.

I knew all my musical and literary companions before the best wife I ever had. I don’t know if she’s jealous, but maybe it’s not wise to ask after more than 30 years. It may be that I can no longer have a musical companion sing in the car, and that would be a real sacrifice. We always let the driver choose the music, which is the only reason I like driving again.

But you shouldn’t spend too much time with your own mothers either. In general, it doesn’t make sense to dwell too much on the past if you want to learn enough about the present. Unless you’re studying history.

And because my good old friend, whom I saw so rarely, wrote to me that he reads his father’s and mother’s old letters so often, …. unfortunately, I have nothing but a few photos of my deceased mother, because a former relative wants to keep all these memories in his closets for himself, …. I just asked my ‚old Swede‘:

„Hey, is this really good for you? Why don’t you just turn that old paper from the past into a nice, warm fire on the beach in the present?“

Somehow „Teflon & Truthfulness“ would have fit.

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What do people do in stories when no one reads them?

I often wonder in which countries of the world this quickly typed articles are read. Often outnumbering their domestic counterparts. Do you read it in German? Or do you rather read the English version, which has been offered recently? I would be happy to receive a short e-mail from where you read it.

longandwastedyears(at)t-online.de

https://maddin61.wordpress.com/